


I'll Teach Myself To Love You

by izzyb



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:25:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzyb/pseuds/izzyb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story told in ten drabbles inspired by ten different songs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Teach Myself To Love You

1\. Black Math—White Stripes  
_And teach myself, maybe that'll be nice_

Christine blew her hair out of her face with an exasperated sigh and turned to face her superior, her face showing every emotion she was feeling. He looked at her steadily, unfazed by her ire.

"You did it wrong. At least admit that."

"Of course I admit it. But how am I supposed to do it _right_ when none of the damned doctors in this hospital will teach me?"

"Language, Nurse."

"Stuff it, McCoy." He just raised his eyebrows at her, so she backed down. "Fine. I'll do it again." Under her breath she muttered "Guess I'll just teach myself."

She grabbed the tricorder and ran it down the patient's bleeding arm, synthetic of course—an advanced practice android. They wouldn't let her do this procedure on a real person until she passed it on the practice dummy.

If her hands trembled a little when his arm brushed hers, she ignored it. McCoy was her shift leader, nothing more.

**

2\. I Must Belong Somewhere—Bright Eyes  
_Everything must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here._

Her door slid open without warning and she almost toppled from her precarious standing perch on her desk chair, trying to string lights on her ceiling, finally decorating after living in this efficient apartment for a year.

"You're still here." McCoy looked winded—he had to have _run_ up those stairs, bypassing the lift as his face was flushed and he was panting. Rather attractively too.

They stared at each other for a moment until Christine realized that she was wearing threadbare pants and an undershirt that left little to the imagination, especially from a position on the ground. She flushed enough that her face matched his in color.

"Yes. I'm here. You can't get rid of me that easily, McCoy."

"Are you ever going to call me Leonard?"

"Maybe if you buy me a drink. My most likely stupid decision to remain in Starfleet has made me thirsty."

He gallantly helped her down from the chair and sat down in it to wait as she headed to her room to change.

**

3\. Crack the Shutters—Snow Patrol  
_Crack the shutters open wide I want to bathe you in the light of day_

A throbbing pain behind her eyelids woke her and she groaned. She had been warned by her mother to not overindulge in liquor, especially tequila, but she had gone out with her classmates last night to celebrate the end of term and it was really really hard to say no to free shots.

She rolled over on her side to pull the covers over her head and curl into a ball of pain when an arm shot out and pulled her close to a warm, naked chest.

McCoy. _Leonard_.

Any lingering pain in her head was overshadowed by the warm feeling in her chest at seeing his face relaxed in sleep. Apparently even then, he craved her touch—she had never been with a more tactile man. Especially one who hid it so well in public. Soft rays of light fell on his body, turning it golden, and she lay her head back on her pillow and watched him.

**

4\. If I Ever Leave This World Alive—Flogging Molly  
_So in a word, don't shed a tear. I'll be here when it all gets weird._

The moment the shuttle arrived back in San Francisco, Christine wanted to throw herself on the ground and kiss the earth. More than that, though, she wanted to find Leonard and smack him repeatedly for ever thinking she was capable of this, of being a combat nurse. Because it turns out that Starfleet does more than just explore—it fights battles. She was not prepared for that, even though she had competently managed sickbay during the _Narada_ incident.

She had tears in her eyes because of the bright sunlight, goddammit, not because of the lack of cadets left on campus as she made her way back to her apartment. Her console was blinking as she entered, but she didn't check it, realizing that no platitudes were going to make her feel better.

Much later, she gave in and touched the "listen" button on the screen.

"Chris," he said softly, sounding tired. "I'll be back soon—I had to stay behind with Jim and Captain Pike. Don't do anything rash and I will be there soon. Love you."

It was ironic that his first declaration of love was on a message. Her finger hovered over "delete" for a full minute until she sat down and erased her resignation letter instead.

**

5\. Strawberry Swing—Coldplay  
_The sky could be blue—I don't mind—without you it's a waste a time_

The sun felt strange on her skin—she had spent too many months working under the artificial light of sickbay. Not that she could enjoy it, under the circumstances.

Her mother was dead and she wasn't crying, wasn't sure if she was capable of crying anymore, at least not without Leonard near her. She never let herself break down, crack her mask unless he was there to help her put herself back together.

The ship psychologist had a lot to say about this, but she tended to ignore her. She did her job and she did it damn well.

As their family priest said the final words over the grave of Lauren Elizabeth Chapel, Christine watched as her mother was lowered into the ground dry-eyed, ready to escape the wide-open space of Louisiana for the dangers of space she never thought she would miss.

**

6\. This Love—Sarah Brightman  
_This love is a strange love—A faded kind of day love_

Sometimes she caught him assessing her as they worked side-by-side on their patient-of-the-hour, wondering if she was ever going to say it back to him. It had been over a month since he had said the words, even though they hardly spent a night apart from one another.

She felt that she showed him well enough how she felt, clutching him desperately close in the middle of the night, especially when the nightmares started.

They both had them—it was a toss-up as to whose would appear in screaming form in a given night. They were quite the pair—two people who felt too much and so took on the experiences of others unconsciously.

He moaned "I love you" into her ear that night as he spilled himself inside her and she kissed him deeply instead of answering.

**

7\. July, July—The Decemberists  
_Oh, what a lonely thing in a blood red drain_

He had sent, no ordered her, out of sickbay and to her quarters to clean up. This was only after a thorough examination on the closest biobed that ascertained that no, this was not her blood. Yes, she was fine. No, the ensign she beamed down with to assist in medicine distribution did not make it.

The hot water of her shower washed away the evidence of the woman's chest wound that McCoy could have healed, maybe. He wasn't there, though, so she had done the best she could do at the time and had failed.

His anger as he had treated her in sickbay left her blank, numb, unsure.

She closed her eyes so that she could not see the pink water going down the drain at her feet, not realizing that he had joined her until his fully-uniformed body wrapped around her naked one.

"You can cry now," he said. So she did.

**

8\. I'm On My Way—The Proclaimers  
_I'm on my way from misery to happiness today_

There was a turning point that they did not notice, but was there all the same. Christine let go of her haze of depression so gradually that it wasn't until she found herself laughing freely one day that she realized it was gone.

"You look happy," one of her nurses told her and a glance in the mirrored console revealed that it was true.

Later that night, she made her first tentative steps in finding female friends by starting a classic film night in her quarters and inviting Gaila, someone who never turned down a social invitation. Ten women pressed the call signal to be let in over the space of an hour and then passed the popcorn while watching one of the remakes of her all-time favorite book, _Pride and Prejudice_.

"Now, that's what men are supposed to be like," Janice sighed when Darcy declared his love for Elizabeth in a rather obtuse and insulting way. Christine threw a piece of popcorn at her.

**

9\. Under the Gun—The Killers  
_She's an angel for sure—She just can't stop telling lies_

He held her down and she squirmed to be free, ready to flip them over and ride him to completion. He wouldn't let her.

"Tell me," he said, sucking a bruise onto the side of her neck. "Stop skirting the truth, Chris. I know you—I have seen you at your best." He nibbled at her lips, pushing her legs farther apart with his hips. "And your worst."

"Damn you, McCoy. Fuck me already!" She thrust her hips up to gain leverage, but he merely put both her wrists in one of his hands and held her hips down with the other.

"Say it."

"You bastard. Okay." She twisted her lips more effectively this time—his crossed eyes her reward. "I love you. Happy now? I love your stubbornness, your patience, and your cock that needs to be inside me right now."

He listened to her demands this time and thrust inside her so quickly that they both gasped when he went to the hilt.

"It's about fucking time." He said it, but she was thinking it.

**

10\. I Hate Everything—Three Days Grace  
_Only when I stop to think about you, I know_

He was a smug, controlling bastard and she hated him. Okay, mainly he was a patient, only-grouchy-with-everyone-else dream man, but today she was allowed to hate him.

Today was the day that he had tricked her into agreeing to marry him.

Oh, he was diabolical, that man. And she really did not know why he would want to marry her—a commitment-phobe to the worst degree—but it might have had something to do with her finally saying those words to him last week in bed. The words he had wrenched out of her.

After softening her up with her favorite dinner of blackened chicken and jasmine rice, he had caught her attention, as only he could, by casually mentioning that they should make arrangements on their next shore leave.

"I don't do engagements," she said, pushing her plate away and looking at a very interesting spot on the wall.

"We'll just get married then."

"Alright." And that was that.


End file.
